Wednesday, December 21, 2016

How to Make a Book Trailer - Part 2

So you've come here from Part 1, eh? That means you've already done your storyboard. If this is not true, you need to backtrack a little and read Part 1. It's linked. Click it. Then come back here.Oh, you're back? Great! Well, in Part 1 you learned that every good book trailer starts with a storyboard. Now that you know what media you're going to use, you need to:

Make a Folder

The next step, once you have your storyboard complete, is to gather all your media into one folder. So, go to your computer's hard drive and make a folder. Call it "Book Trailer" or something like that.

Then, you need to fill up your folder with all the stuff you need for your book trailer, as per your storyboard. You need images, videos, special effects, music... you might be creating your own (if you're awesome), finding stuff on the internet, or combining your own material and found material. A word of caution: a lot of stuff that's on the internet is copyrighted. You can go onto Google or YouTube and search and find pretty much anything, but pretty much everything is copyrighted. That's because when someone creates something, they automatically get copyrights. "What do I care?" you ask. "I'm just making a book trailer for a school assignment." Well, that may be true, but if you use copyrighted material you run several risks:1. The risk of plagiarizing:Plagiarism is defined as taking someone else's words or ideas and presenting them as your own. So if you do not give credit to every source you use, you are plagiarizing. That might not matter if you're making a grade eight book trailer, but it will matter when you're in college or university and you're given a multimedia assignment. So just be careful to give credit to all your sources.2. The risk of punishment: If you post your book trailer on social media and it includes copyright material, you will be punished. In YouTube that means you'll get a copyright strike against you. Three strikes on YouTube and you're out. On Facebook, they'll just take it down. So if you need to post this book trailer as part of the assignment, be aware that copyright material, especially music and video clips, could result in your trailer being removed from the site.

3. The risk of screwing up: Read your teacher's instructions carefully. Some teachers have certain expectations, such as expecting your video clips to all be recorded by you. Be aware of where your teacher sets the line between creating your own book trailer and trying to pass off someone else's work as your own.So, now that we have all that legal mumbo-jumbo out of the way, let's take a look at the folder Nerdvark created for his book trailer for "In a Cat's Eye":

Nerdvark's book trailer folder. As you can see, there is no copyrighted material in that baby!

Of course, it's always best to do your own photos, filming, and narration. If you're really hardcore, you can even create your own music. Now go forth, and fill up your folder!If you're finished with Part 2, click here to go on to How to Make a Book Trailer, Part 3.